


winter's end

by Marenke



Series: AUgust 2020 [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Slytherin Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marenke/pseuds/Marenke
Summary: She's the girl with skinned knees and long, flowing robes with colorful, mismatched patches. Harry knows of her: she’s every day on the corner of the children’s park, drawing on the dirty with a stick. He doesn’t know her: she does not go to his school. She’s just the weird girl at the corner of the local park, drawing with a stick on the ground.
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter
Series: AUgust 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828096
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66
Collections: AUgust 2020





	winter's end

**Author's Note:**

> prompt for day 7 is childhood friends babey!!!

She's the girl with skinned knees and long, flowing robes with colorful, mismatched patches. Harry knows of her: she's every day on the corner of the children's park, drawing on the dirty with a stick. He doesn't know her: she does not go to his school. She's just the weird girl at the corner of the local park, drawing with a stick on the ground.

He doesn't know what compels him to go to her - perhaps it's the throbbing of his head, after Dudley thoroughly beat him up, clouding his senses -, but he goes. Harry sits by her side, watches as she draws animal after animal. Most of them don't look like animals he'd see in a zoo, but in a book of fantastic creatures: hippogriffs and unicorns, winding dragons and fluffy birds with cat's eyes.

"Those are some nice drawings." Harry says, and the girl jumps, looking at him with wild, fearful eyes. There's a bruise blossoming on the left side of her face. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's - it's okay." She starts, slow, pushes a strand of black hair behind her ear. Her knuckles are red, he notices, and her hand is full of welts. "I'm - I'm not good with surprises."

He's heard her say a grand total of two phrases, and she said them in such a low tone that Harry _barely_ heard her over the sound of the wind. Shyness, perhaps, or trying to not attract attention? He could relate. Sort of.

"I'm Harry."

"Daphne." Her eyes avert back to the drawings, and she keeps doing them, over and over, adding details until it seems, to Harry, that they're going to jump from the ground to attack them both.

Then, when she's done with it - she rises, stomps on it until the drawings are gone, and Harry looks at her, baffled.

"Why?" Her eyes look to him, cold.

"Better me to destroy them than to let someone else." She cringed at her words as soon as she said it, shoulders up, eyes closing for a moment. "Sorry. _Sorry_. I - the boys. The big ones, they like to come and destroy my drawings, and I don't want them to see me cry over it. Again."

Harry had a good idea who the boys were. He nodded, rose, offered her a hand. She looked at it, shook it tentatively. Harry laughed, and the girl's cheeks flushed crimson.

"Do you wanna play with me?"

Daphne smiles.

"Sure."

* * *

They play - every day after school, from the early spring day the two met to warm summer evenings, when she reads him leather-bound books, detailing potions with ingredients he's never heard of, under the cool shade of a thicket of trees. In autumn, when the wind starts to cool, they meet in the library, and go through the stack of books with cool covers before picking at the boring ones. In winter, they exchange letters.

"My family's poor," She mutters, putting a strand of hair behind her ear like the nervous habit it is. "So my aunt offers to host us. She pays for everything, and that way my parents can save a little money."

"So you don't get Christmas gifts?" Harry asks, kicking a pebble as they walk, aimlessly. There's a light dusting of snow on the ground, and Daphne buries herself in her scarf, a tattered green and silver thing.

"No. Aunt Alina says she's already doing enough for my family by taking Tori off my parents, so they would raise only one girl instead of two." Once more, that nervous habit. Sometimes, Daphne mentions a sister, but she's explained the girl lives with that aunt. "That's - that's alright. Better me than Tori."

Daphne pushes the scarf up her face, hiding another bruise, and the two fall in silence.

Her letters are nice, though, even if they come through a small pigeon she trained. Harry feeds it the little scraps he can offer, and ties his replies on the bird's leg. That Christmas, Harry gets away with cutting one of aunt Petunia's flowers, and he presses it to send to Daphne, hoping to make her smile.

* * *

"The flower." Daphne starts, the first day she's back home. There's no bruising to her face, but her wrists have purple, blue, yellow bruises on it that are shaped like hands. There's a small smile playing on her lips, and she plays with the frayed edge of her robe sleeve. "Thanks. I have nothing to give back, but..."

"It's a _gift_ , Daphne." Harry smiles, and cocks his head. "I've heard the library got a bunch of new books. Haven't seen them yet, though."

Her eyes shine, and she grabs his hand, dragging him away.

* * *

When they're eleven, Harry's birthday a scarce few days away, Daphne sniffles, drawing forcefully on the ground. Her stick is going to snap, at some point, with such force she's using.

"My parents are sending me away." A pause. The stick snaps, and Daphne simply picks up the remains, continuing to draw.

"Aunt Alina?" Harry guesses, and she shakes her head.

"Boarding school in Scotland." She replies, softly, and Harry looks at her. "It's - it's something of a family tradition, I suppose, so they saved for it."

"Can you write to me?" He asks, in turn. Daphne nods, and Harry clasps her hand. "Then that's okay. It'll be like a year-long winter, that's all."

Daphne smiles, and Harry holds her hand a little bit tighter. He'd miss having a friend, but - that was okay. Winter had to end at some point. Harry just hoped it wouldn't be long.

* * *

He goes to the 9 ¾ platform, expecting nothing. _Magic_ \- the idea of it is fantastical, like the terrible children's books he and Daphne (he misses her already) read during autumn. He hopes Daphne's letters can reach him in Hogwarts.

In the train, alone, he looks for an empty compartment. Then pauses when he sees a familiar face, with a group of people. Harry hesitates, long enough for someone - blonde, snotty-looking - to notice.

"Get out, this is -" He starts, attracting the rest of the group's attention, and when Daphne sees Harry, she smiles, genuine, jumping out of her seat. Her robes look clean, no patches in sight, and it's strange to him to see her so well-put together. Maybe her parents saved for this, or maybe aunt Alina gave them to her.

"Harry!" She says, ignoring the blonde. Daphne opens the door, brings him inside. "You didn't tell me you were a wizard!"

"I didn't know it until a few days ago." He passed a hand through his hair, nervous at all the eyes at him. "Your friends?"

"Yes. Come, sit." Says a boy, bored, skin as dark as Harry's hair. Harry shrugs, sits by Daphne's side.

* * *

He learns their names: Draco, Pansy, Blaise, Goyle and Crabbe. They treat him coldly, but Harry is used to it.

While they're snacking, Draco rises, pats his robes.

"I'm going after Harry Potter." He says, and Harry raises an eyebrow. Hagrid _had_ mentioned he was famous, but - so much? That was weird.

"I'm right here." He says, and there's a pause. Draco looks at him, then at Daphne, eyes squinted, as if trying to see something Harry doesn't know what it is.

"Show the scar, then." Harry complies, and the panic in Draco's face is funny, to say the least. Daphne started laughing. "You are Harry Potter? You look like a mud - a muggle!"

Draco definitely was going to say something bad, Harry realizes, then smooths it over. He's too busy having fun and listening to Daphne laugh.

"If it helps, I also didn't know I was famous?" Harry tries. It didn't seem to help: in fact, it actually seemed to have made things _worse_.

"Merlin, Draco, you -" Pansy starts, then realizes. "Wait, I also mistreated you. That was my mistake. Do forgive me."

Harry shrugs.

"No problem. So, uh, why does the chocolate frog jump?" He asks, while Draco has a mental breakdown in the corner, and Blaise explains it.

* * *

When he gets sorted, Harry ignores the silence from three houses and the whooping cheers from Slytherin, sliding to Daphne's side. Harry clasped her hand underneath the table, and Daphne smiled at him.

"No winter this year?" He asks, watching as the last people are Sorted.

"No winter." Daphne replies, gripping his hand tighter.


End file.
